


Down with the Ship

by strawberrysoup



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Dubious Consent, F/F, Giving People as Presents, Human Trafficking, Pet Play, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:53:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrysoup/pseuds/strawberrysoup
Summary: You never could’ve expected a celebration to go so, so wrong. The land was foreign, too warm compared to the Cold Lands, and filled with horrible people. Horrible people that planned to sell you to the highest bidder — who, as you’d come to learn, was the ruler of the stupid seaside city. She was a beautiful empress, the high priestess and war general her consorts and evidently, your new masters. Human beings shouldn’t be given as gifts, much less called ‘pets’, and you found the ship that was your life sinking so much faster than you ever could’ve expected.
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Carol Danvers/Reader, Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Reader, Carol Danvers/Natasha Romanov/Reader, Carol Danvers/Reader, Natasha Romanov (Marvel)/Reader, Natasha Romanov/Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Carol Danvers/Reader
Comments: 15
Kudos: 104





	Down with the Ship

**Author's Note:**

> CTRL+F to search ‘content warnings’ to skip to the more detailed tags at the bottom of the chapter.

The night sky through the bars of your cage was beautiful, bright stars and a glowing moon casting a vibrant glow over the plaza, a gaudy waste if you’d ever seen one. There were stones laid in the ground to aid the turn of wheels, as if the dips and grooves didn’t cause wagons to stutter and bounce hopelessly. At least dirt roads could be cared for with regular maintenance to prevent damage, like the welts crisscrossing your entire back side down to the soles of your feet where the bars of the cage had dug more and more painfully into your flesh the longer you were forced to rest your weight on them.

It might’ve been the cage’s fault you hated the stone road—the bumps made it impossible for your bare feet to find purchase on the bars and you fell, constantly, if you tried to stand while the horses hauled you and two others earlier in the day. One memorable event had seen to your feet slipping through the bars, your left leg bashing against a rock so hard you felt something crack. Screaming had been a mistake though. The man steering the horses had nearly caved your face in for causing damages. The damages that could’ve been prevented with carefully pressed dirt roads. You never would’ve caused damages if you hadn’t been in the stupid fucking cage to begin with. 

You couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. Your village had been celebrating the winter solstice beneath the auroras. It marked your 18th winter, in fact, which meant you’d been drinking vodka like water most of the day. There was music and dancing and the food had smelled wonderful, but then the scent of smoke had grown more intrusive than the bonfire should’ve caused.

The screaming came after that. There had been blood and fire and so much screaming but you could barely remember what happened—your head still pounded with the after effects of the alcohol and extreme dehydration, but you had no idea how long it had been since that night. You’d been attacked and woke up in the bowels of a ship, vomiting profusely from both the vodka and the blow to the head you’d taken. The fucking cage had come an indeterminate amount of time later, when the boat finally docked. 

It wasn’t nearly as cold as it should’ve been. There was no snow and the brisk night air made you shiver but certainly wasn’t unbearable like it would’ve been at home. Your clothes and the furs you’d cherished most of your life had been taken from you, the black pelt your father gifted you in your 13th winter devastatingly gone leaving you naked in the cage. The weather reinforced how far from home you were, the unrecognizable language further emphasizing the distance—you we’re good with different dialects, you made a point of being able to speak to those who lived outside your village, but you’d never heard a language like the ones the slavers spoke. 

That’s what they were, of course. Aside from kidnapping and beating you they had treated you like furniture (and not even a precious piece at that). Not once had they spoken to you, with the exception of the one who’d screamed at you while decimating your face with his fists. The other prisoners had been spared similar fates thanks to the fact their cages had wooden slats across the bottom to provide stability—well, except the woman. She’d screamed at the slaver beating you until he’d deviated his attention to her, leaving you bleeding on the ground while yanking her from her cage. Luckily he'd expended most of his energy nearly killing you and didn’t spend much time on her, mostly just screaming and pulling her long black hair. 

You didn’t know her name or where they’d stolen her from, but you’d carefully waved a small thank you to her once you were both returned to your cages. The look on her face betrayed how badly the man hurt you and she’d reached through the bars towards you with tears in her big, dark eyes. Now she was asleep in her cage, leaning against the bars closest to you while you held her hand. She’d attempted to give you some of the slats from the bottom of her cage but you’d refused—she was older than you by at least forty years and you worried; you were young and fully able-bodied, you would be sold regardless of your physical state. You didn’t know what would happen to her if the bars caused even half the damage they’d caused you, she already moved so stiffly. You couldn’t say for sure, but you assumed the life of an unmarketable slave was short. 

The other prisoner was a man, several years older than yourself. He’d kept quiet through the entire journey, a blank look in his eyes. You wondered how long he'd been under the thumb of the slavers, to be so dejected and nigh on soulless. You hadn’t so much as made eye contact with him, even as you both sat awake through the night. The stars shifted above you, the moon taking its path across the sky until the sun began to rise behind you. Hours passed like days, stretching infinitely until people began shuffling around the plaza. The slavers you recognized returned, yawning and speaking in soft voices to each other. They barely paid the three of you any attention until the sun was fully up—then they went to the man’s cage.

He complied with whatever they were saying, dutifully and with his eyes cast down. They dumped a bucket of water over his head and threw handfuls of dense white powder all over him, the grains sticking to his wet skin. He wasn’t given clothes, much to your disdain considering it meant you’d also not be given clothing, but they wrapped some sort of belt around his waist before shackling his hands to it. The other woman was next, also doused with water and powder and shackled. Instead of shuffling her immediately back into the cage like they had the man, dark paint was smeared over her tan shoulders and they forced her to the ground outside of the cage before attaching her belt to the bars. 

The slavers walked towards your cage with irritated expressions, the younger man gesturing angrily about your person while they conversed. The damage to your body, you leg and face especially, was evidently extensive. Everything hurt, but your leg was the worst. You assumed something was broken, at the very least deeply, deeply bruised and you could barely rest any weight on it—not that you’d tried in hours.

When the cage door was yanked open you tried not to startle, but a cry escaped your lips when the younger man dug a hand into your hair and yanked you out onto the stone ground of the plaza. Your ankle radiated pain up towards your shin and you collapsed, forced to crawl forward when he didn’t stop pulling on your hair. 

They were still muttering angrily when frigid water spilled over you, leaving you shivering on the stone. Another bucket followed and you found yourself being tossed around while they thoroughly drenched your skin. The powder caked onto your flesh like a layer of clay, itchy and tight as it quickly began to dry. It had a strong odor you didn’t recognize, overwhelming and unpleasant and you found yourself sputtering and spitting where a small amount had gotten past your lips.

A yelp escaped you when a hand immediately gripped your hair again, shaking you roughly and shouting. It stopped when the older slaver yelled at the younger one, slapping him away and gesturing at you angrily. They continued to argue while you laid on the ground, feeling like your lungs wouldn’t inflate. The woman shackled to her cage behind you shouted angrily at the pair, beckoning you towards her urgently. 

Your body didn’t hesitate even when your head did, crawling slowly across the stone. She grabbed you the second you were within reach, tugging you into her chest and shuffling to the side to try and block you from their sight. Her shackles rattled quietly, one hand running gently through your hair while the other gently roamed over the welts across your back. You could hear her speaking, another dialect you didn’t recognize, quietly with her lips almost pressed to the top of your head.

It sounded like a prayer and you wondered if the goosebumps that ran across your skin was a result of being touched gently for the first time in so long or if whoever she invoked was now watching you. There was no telling how her Gods worked, maybe they were willing to look over someone who didn’t worship them. The Gods of your village were rarely so kind, especially in the absence of a sacrifice. 

It was easy to tell when the slaver's attention returned to you; she immediately began spitting what you were very, very sure was a curse. The slavers hesitated, evidently able to understand what she was saying—or at least what she was implying with her furious words. It didn’t stop the younger man for long, he stomped over and grabbed a fist full of your hair once again and used it to throw you several feet away. The woman continued to spit a furious string of words, to which the slaver seemed to grow increasingly angry about. He turned towards her, arm raising swiftly. 

“Don’t you touch her!” Your voice was hoarse, you’d barely spoken since being kidnapped but the man’s head snapped in your direction immediately. “I’m right here you son of a bitch, me! Don’t touch her, beat me, asshole!” 

They didn’t understand your language, you’d learned that early on when they mocked your words with gibberish, but he certainly understood your tone if the vibrant red of his cheeks was anything to go by. His hand fell to the whip rolled up at his waist while he stomped towards you, lips curled in a snarl as he let the end fall to the ground with a startling crack. A wash of fear went down your back; you’d never been whipped in your life. You had a particularly high pain tolerance, but what was a broken arm to a whipping?

The other woman was shouting at him again and you steeled yourself—you’d either live or you wouldn’t, but you could at least keep his disgusting hands off of her until she could be sold. She looked as kind as she acted, beautiful and sharp, and next to the slavers her skin tone and eyes were exotic. Someone would purchase her to clean or cook, as long as she was able bodied. Even if your wounds were left to fester until you passed from fever, you would survive the initial whipping and still be fit for the auction block almost immediately. She didn’t have that luxury.

Your eyes widened when he raised his arm and you scrambled to cover your head, tucking your chin against your sternum and drawing your knees in; you desperately wanted to avoid learning what sort of pain a lash to the face would illicit while he seemed so keen on teaching you. She was still screaming and the older slaver was yelling and the crack of the whip was potentially the loudest thing you’d ever heard.

When it landed a line of fire erupted on your skin, stretching from that first point of contact on the crest of your shoulder down to your hip. If you hadn’t moved that line would’ve been in the dead center of your face and with the force used, bleeding profusely. The only reason you didn’t scream was because you bit down on your lip so hard you were unable to, purposefully falling to maintain your curled position down on the stones while you writhed—you wouldn’t give him the chance to aim for your face again.

The second strike ran diagonally from the same shoulder, across your back, and to the opposite hip. The third was directly on your spine and your body spasmed violently in response, a scream finally torn from your throat when you physically couldn’t keep your mouth shut any longer. There would’ve been more, you were sure, had the voice of another woman interrupted the man. He spoke in return with stuttered, nervous reverence and while you didn’t move from your curled position you believed his face likely reflected his tone with fear.

You couldn’t understand anything that was being said. The woman was shouting, one word more and more desperately and you assumed it must’ve been something she assigned to you in her head. Your brain fogged and you found yourself having to fight your muscles from going limp every time you exhaled. You wondered what she was calling you, what she referred you to as in her language. Your mother had always called you her baby, your father called you sweetheart.

Pulling yourself up wasn’t a matter of wanting to or not; it came down to the fact you were unable. Otherwise you would’ve dragged yourself across the stone once again to find a place in the older woman’s arms, to keep her from drawing attention to herself with her shouting, but you didn’t have the energy, the will, or the ability. There was no way your arms would hold your weight, your left ankle was entirely out of commission and the right was just as useless considering the circumstances.

You would’ve laid there until you died had it not been for a pair of soft hands taking hold of your upper arms. A wail died in your throat, lips clamping shut—you had to keep it together, if it was the very last thing you did. It was bad enough for these people to see you bleed, you wouldn’t let them hear you cry. Your father was one of the greatest warriors in the Cold Lands, you wouldn’t disrespect him by showing such weakness to the enemy.

A woman’s voice spoke close to your ear, a crooning coo that set your teeth on edge even more than the pain. She propped you up on your hip, laying your upper body carefully against her side where she sat on the stone and resting your weak head against her shoulder. Your eyes caught dark red hair, falling in loose waves to a pale, pointed chin. Before you could examine her more closely, your attention was drawn to the sound of a loud smack.

There was another woman, this one blonde and wearing what looked like miles of folded pale gold silk, had evidently just backhanded the younger slaver so hard the man lost balance and hit the ground. You marveled, just a tiny bit, at the sight. Her hair fell in windswept blonde waves to her exposed collar bones and she looked like she’d just been wrecked in the bedroom. Absently you wondered if the woman whose hand was cupping your ribcage had anything to do with that.

The blonde proceeded to speak to the older slaver for several long minutes, gesturing lazily every once in a while with jewel laden fingers. You’d been able to realize that the redhead holding you was also incredibly richly dressed, even in comparison to the well-dressed merchants making their way into the plaza to set up for the day. The slavers also deferred to the blonde; she was evidently someone of incredibly high stature—especially considering the redhead, who you assumed was her wife or consort, was practically dripping with gold.

Your attention shot to the woman holding you when she spoke, shrinking back when she pressed her cheek to the top of your head. It sounded like she was pouting, using a cutesy tone that made the blonde smile affectionately and respond with a long-suffering sigh before turning back to the slaver.

It was obvious that there was a transaction occurring and based on the fingers walking their way down your rib cage towards your legs, you could only assume you were the merchandise in question. It was easy to tell when the sale was complete, the blonde looking pleased and the old slaver looking nothing short of relieved.

“Oh, fuck this,” you murmured quietly to yourself, eyes squeezing shut as frustrated tears tried to well.

Hearing your own language spoken back to you after so long was so shocking you almost didn’t process the redhead’s words. “Don’t be like that, pet. It’s our girl’s birthday and she’s always wanted a cute little kitten.”

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: whipping, human trafficking, humiliation
> 
> hey guys, welcome to the newest edition in soup's 'i already have too many fics going might as well keep adding to it' list of fics. hope you like it, please drop a comment if you do!


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